


Circumstantial

by Misty_Reeyus



Series: True Colors [1]
Category: Magic Kaito
Genre: (that type is messy-dark-haired blue-eyed intelligent-yet-immature bufFOONS), Developing Friendships, Gen, Mild Mind Games, Suspicions, Team Building, aka saguru is super confused by how akako makes him feel, and is also lowkey crushing on both kaito and aoko cuz he’s a distinguished bi with a //type//, and mentions of various crushes, these kids are a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 21:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18558643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misty_Reeyus/pseuds/Misty_Reeyus
Summary: Saguru struggles with being in the Kaitou Kid Capture Brigade alongside the Kaitou Kid.He struggles even more with trying to figure out just what the hell is up with Akako.





	Circumstantial

**Author's Note:**

> writing this took three fucking years

It takes some time and a good deal of goading from Aoko-san, but ultimately, Kuroba-kun does wind up agreeing to join what Aoko-san promptly dubs “The Kaitou Kid Capture Brigade” before the hour is up.

The elderly man behind the bar counter—Jii Konosuke, as he was introduced, who Saguru has quickly realized must be in on the Kaitou Kid thing somehow—instantly chokes on himself and shoots Kuroba-kun an expression of reproach and shock. Honestly, Saguru is a little surprised himself; after all, he made zero effort to conceal how his own endorsement of Aoko-san’s idea was mainly an attempt to get under Kuroba-kun’s skin. If they became a team, Saguru would of course use the opportunity to search for evidence against Kid, but then again, Kuroba-kun would also have a better chance of actively sabotaging any of Saguru’s efforts. It makes for something of a paradox: the reason each of them has joined is because the other did.

Well, that…and Aoko-san.

It’s obvious that Kuroba-kun, infatuated as he is, would do almost anything to make his childhood friend happy. Saguru doesn’t share the history those two have, but he can still understand how Kuroba-kun feels, because Aoko-san is both a lovely young lady and probably the most genuine person Saguru has ever met. She’s bright, and sweet, and adorably enthusiastic about forming a group to catch Kaitou Kid, so the puppy-dog look she sported while imploring both boys to participate in her project provided plenty of incentive just by itself.

None of that really explains the _fourth_ member of their entourage, though.

While Aoko-san shrieks in delight and Jii-san wipes ever more frantically at his sweaty forehead, Saguru leans against the pool table and glances over to where Akako-san is sipping her juice, seated at a table on the opposite end of the billiards bar. Admittedly, Saguru doesn’t know much about her other than that she’s the most popular girl in their class, if not the entire school, as well as the single most objectively beautiful person he’s ever seen in his life. But no matter how gorgeous she is, having her “seduce Kaitou Kid” really wasn’t the most solid plan to begin with, and considering the way Kuroba-kun has been side-eyeing her with just as much wariness as he’s been sending Saguru, that gambit is _definitely_ a lost cause now.

It just doesn’t seem like Akako-san really brings anything to the table here.

Plus, Saguru isn’t sure why she’s agreed to be part of this in the first place, because while Aoko-san is openly affectionate towards the other girl, Akako-san doesn’t seem quite as inclined to return the sentiment. Then, though, Saguru sees the way Akako-san looks at the two childhood friends, the way she narrows her eyes just slightly when Aoko-san pulls Kuroba-kun into a brief hug, and he wonders if maybe her reasons for joining have more to do with the latter person than the former.

But soon enough, Akako-san notices Saguru staring at her, to which she smirks and tosses him a flirtatious wink that instantly sends his cheeks flushing with an unprecedented amount of heat. He quickly averts his gaze, vigorously shaking his head as he tries to dispel the sudden, strange, _unnatural_ urge he feels to study her, and dote on her, and revere everything about her. Yes, so much about Akako-san is mysterious, and attractive, and extremely intriguing, but Saguru can’t let himself be distracted from his investigation by an unrelated classmate.

Saguru is here to catch the Kaitou Kid. That’s all.

* * *

The day after the news of Kaitou Kid’s next calling card comes out, Aoko-san excitedly calls on the brigade, all four of them gathering in one of Ekoda High’s club rooms for their very first pre-heist planning session. Aoko-san’s leadership has them spending the afternoon poring over the target building’s blueprints and assigning each member to specific positions and tasks, but while Saguru contributes what he can, his efforts are primarily focused elsewhere. After all, with the Kaitou Kid literally sitting across the table from him, this plan is compromised before it’s even been made, so Saguru must individually come up with contingencies, and then consider how Kuroba-kun might have his own contingencies, and then create ever more contingencies for _those_ contingencies.

(Wow, the two of them together really do make for a paradox.)

The group formulates its strategy through a couple more after-school sessions throughout the week, and then on Kid’s promised date, they all meet up a block down from the heist location. Since Aoko-san already told her father about her project beforehand, the inspector allows the group onto the actual scene without much fuss, and although he does initially shoot Akako-san a hesitant look—likely because she’s the only member who doesn’t already have a history of consulting for Kid heists—a flutter of her lashes and a flip of her hair (a move that sends Saguru’s own heart racing and would surely have lesser men literally falling at her feet) is enough to apparently convince Nakamori to leave her be.

(“Anyway,” the inspector grumbles, as he swiftly turns his back and marches off, “some other heists I’ve got a goddamn _seven-year-old_ running around the scene, so who am I to fuckin’ judge anymore?”)

“Okay,” Aoko-san says, directing the group over to a relatively unpopulated spot in the hallway just outside the large sapphire’s display room. “Comms check.”

Each of them is wearing a wireless earpiece, and quick test of their mics confirms that the four comms are tuned into the same channel, the audio crystal clear on all ends. Saguru provided this equipment himself, having requested the most stable prototypes straight from Hakuba Labs, so he’s interested to see how Kuroba-kun means to maintain a presence on the line while at the same time running around as Kid. He’ll almost certainly have to employ some sort of technological tampering in addition to his usual methods of subterfuge.

“All systems go!” Aoko-san cries when the check is finished, and determinedly pumps her fist in the air. “Now, everyone make sure you keep your communications on.”

“Will do,” Akako-san drawls. “Oh, and Kuroba-kun, do be careful when switching between frequencies. It would be quite embarrassing if you said the wrong thing into the wrong channel.”

Aoko-san furrows her brow confusedly, then turns to Kuroba-kun. “Kaito, what’s she talking about? Are you going to livestream during this or something?”

“What? No!” Kuroba-kun sputters, and shoots Akako-san an almost _dirty_ glare. “She probably meant that for Hakuba. He’s the one who’s got a second channel to the police, right?”

Saguru blinks. Well, yes, his own earpiece also has a setting for the task force’s frequency, but he’s opted to turn that off entirely for tonight; he wants to spend the Capture Brigade’s maiden voyage concentrating on how this new group’s presence will affect the flow of the heist. Besides, Saguru doesn’t typically follow orders the same way the officers do, and Inspector Nakamori isn’t always the most keen on listening to Saguru’s input, either.

“Oh yes, of course, that’s what I meant,” Akako-san says, but something about her flippant tone combined with the way she’s still looking straight at Kuroba-kun gives Saguru the impression that that’s not what she meant at all. Honestly, it almost sounded as if she might be suggesting that Kuroba-kun was…

Saguru shakes his head. No, surely not. It took hair samples and (questionably accurate) DNA scans just to get him onto Kuroba-kun’s scent in the first place, so what opportunity would Akako-san possibly have had to find out?

The moment is still strange, but for now, Saguru pushes it to the back of his mind as the four of them split up. In accordance with their plans, Akako-san disappears into the actual display room while Aoko-san takes the stairs up to the building’s top floor. But wherever Kuroba-kun goes is definitely not where he’s supposed to be, and while Saguru could try to tail him, he’s sure Kuroba-kun would have a contingency for that, so he ultimately decides against it. Instead, he chooses to lie in wait four rooms down from his actual assigned position and stare intently at his pocket watch in wait for when Kaitou Kid will make his actual move at ten o’ clock.

It’s ten o’ one and twenty-three point six seconds when Akako-san’s voice chimes in his ear, melodic and mesmerizing and—oh damn it, Saguru, this is _not_ the time to be distracted! He lightly smacks himself in the cheek to regain focus, and Akako-san informs the rest of the brigade that the display room has clouded up with pink smoke, blocking everyone’s vision. She continues to relay events as they play out: an officer is quick to turn on the fans, but by the time the air is cleared, the enforced glass case that was housing the gem is already empty.

The next thing Saguru hears isn’t from the earpiece; it’s Nakamori’s voice booming from somewhere outside, loud and unmistakable as he shouts, “Kid’s running towards the west wing! All units in pursuit!” Saguru peeks out the doorway of the room he’s in to see a gigantic mass of uniformed officers zip straight past him, and when they’re all gone, Saguru, acting on a hunch more than any concrete logic, promptly runs down the hall towards the direction they came from.

“And what do you think you’re doing?” Akako-san calls some time later, her words resounding in his actual ear right as he bursts into the display area, as well as through the comms with just a split second’s delay. Saguru goes still in the doorway as he registers the sight before him: Akako-san is standing in the middle of the room, her arms crossed over her chest, speaking to someone who is dressed in a task force outfit but has very clearly popped open a panel of the glass case that very clearly still holds the gem.

“You use trick mirrors to make the case appear empty,” Akako-san continues, “then you throw the inspector’s voice to get everyone out of the room. Honestly, you try so hard to appear stylish, only to employ such crude tactics?” Her tone is low and teasing, echoing in both of Saguru’s ears with a slight but off-putting dissonance in timing, and as she approaches the false officer with slow, sultry steps, Saguru briefly reconsiders his initial conclusion that the seduction plan was infeasible. Right now, the tactic is working _far_ too well on Saguru himself, and he’s not even the one it’s being directed at.

Frustratingly though, the person it actually is being directed at doesn’t seem affected at all. Kaitou Kid doesn’t react to Akako-san’s advances the same way most men do, and he doesn’t even react the same way Kuroba-kun always does: with unease or irritation. Instead, Kid adopts an equally flirtatious tone as he responds, “Does it really matter if it’s crude, so long as it still works?”

After that, Kid doesn’t even try to keep up the pretense of being an officer. In the blink of an eye, he’s changed from the task force’s black uniform to his trademark white suit, then he casually takes the sapphire into his gloved hand. Meanwhile, Aoko-san’s voice calls through the earpiece, “Akako-chan, what’s going on down there?”, which Kuroba-kun follows with “Yeah, what the hell’s happening?”, and though Saguru is sure Kuroba-kun must be pulling some sort of trick involving prerecorded dialogue and careful playback over the feed, he has to admit it’s very convincing.

“My, you’re such a critic, Ojou-san,” Kaitou Kid drawls, as he tosses his gaze between her and Saguru. “It’s a shame. Both of you would be so much more appealing if you just learned to let yourself enjoy a show rather than pick it apart at the seams.”

Saguru feels himself flush—okay, how the hell did _he_ get pulled into all the flirting too?—but that does nothing to stop him from breaking back into a run to give pursuit. Kid laughs and takes off with the jewel, dashing through the opposite doorway and down the hall towards the east wing, where he somehow manages to lose Saguru around a corner. Saguru reports as much through his comms, and either Kuroba-kun or a recording of Kuroba-kun makes sputtering noises while Aoko-san maintains her lookout on the top floor, but the Kaitou Kid is not spotted again that night, having apparently disappeared without a trace.

Kuroba Kaito meets the rest of the brigade members on the ground floor afterwards, and while Saguru greatly suspects him to be brazenly carrying the sapphire somewhere on his person, he has no real reason to request a body search. As civilian consultants, they’re not required to stick around for police reports either, so Kuroba-kun just walks out the door and then accompanies Aoko-san in the direction of the metro station. Saguru is left standing on the sidewalk while he waits for Baaya to come pick him up in the car, and since Akako-san is standing around herself, presumably waiting for a car of her own, he takes the opportunity to ask a question of her:

“How exactly did you know Kid used trick mirrors?”

“Oh, I didn’t at first,” Akako-san answers, giving only a casual shrug. “But I figured that Kid likely hadn’t actually taken the gem yet, so I retreated to a corner and waited for him to make his move. Then when one of the officers returned to the room and removed the glass panel, it all became rather apparent.”

In that instant, Saguru understands that he was so very _wrong_ when he thought Akako-san wouldn’t actually add anything to the team. He’d assumed as much because she didn’t contribute often during the pre-heist planning sessions, and because he fully believed the seduction idea just wouldn’t work. As it turns out, he was right on one front—Akako-san’s beauty, while powerful in its own way, wasn’t a very effective weapon against Kid—but what Saguru didn’t realize before is that while Akako-san may not necessarily be great at coming up with plans, she’s clearly _excellent_ at thinking on her feet.

Suddenly, Saguru can’t stop staring at her. It seems Akako-san is even more intriguing than he first thought.

* * *

The longer the Kaitou Kid Capture Brigade lasts, the stronger the team actually becomes. It’s honestly unexpected, but despite Kuroba-kun’s participation, Saguru spends the next few heists feeling keener, more invigorated, more _capable_ than he did when he was working alone. Sure, Kid continues to evade capture, but working as a team with Aoko-san and Akako-san and even Kuroba-kun himself builds Saguru up in its own way.

Kuroba-kun tends to be cagey and difficult, if not outright argumentative, as he walks the fine line of maintaining his secret identity, but Kaitou Kid is unafraid of risk, and that only spurs Saguru to act ever bolder himself. Aoko-san is clever and perceptive in her own right, as well as a natural leader, and her strategies would likely be incredibly effective if the Kaitou Kid weren’t already in on them. Akako-san is…well, her motivations and intentions for being in the group remain very much a mystery, and she seems to view the Kid heists as amusing spectacles rather than actual chances to catch the thief, but her presence is still more helpful than not.

So Saguru decides to dedicate himself to the brigade rather than his own singular efforts, and facilitates this by forgoing his once semi-regular trips back to Europe to stay in Japan as much as possible. It’s a strange and somewhat frustrating shift—he’d garnered a significant reputation for himself in England, but here, Saguru is seen more for his father’s legacy than for his own merit as a detective. Ultimately though, being able to work with the other three on Kaitou Kid heists is worth it.

Over the next couple of months, the brigade’s pre-heist planning sessions become more and more involved. When it gets to the point that one day, they’re kicked out of the school building and forced to continue their meeting elsewhere, Aoko-san promptly invites them all over to her house. “I can order food to be delivered to my place,” she says, “and if it comes down to it, you all can spend the night.”

Saguru quirks a brow. “Is your father going to be okay with that?”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Aoko-san assures with a grin. “Dad’s working, so he’s not even gonna be home tonight. We won’t bother him.”

Saguru opens his mouth to try and clarify: no, that’s not the problem, the problem is that she’s offering to let three teenagers with teenage hormones sleep over at her house on a Friday night, and what’s more, that she’s offering to do so while there is a distinct lack of parental supervision. But Aoko-san is beaming, indigo eyes sparkling so insistently, and they really do need the extra time to work out these increasingly complicated tactics—honestly, what on earth possessed the owner of this jewel to display their piece in a _kabuki theater_?—so the words don’t end up making it past his lips.

Instead, Saguru texts Baaya to let her know he doesn’t need to be picked up for a while yet if at all, and fifty-four minutes and eleven seconds later, he’s eating a greasy takeout meal over theater blueprints that are spread out atop the Nakamoris’ dinner table. By the time they’ve polished up their rather elaborate plan—one that accounts for all the trapdoors in the diagrams, and a few built-in tricks that _aren’t_ indicated on the original maps, and the entire goddamned _rotating stage_ —it’s late at night, so Aoko-san makes good on her promise of letting them all sleep over.

Akako-san is given the guest room and a spare set of Aoko-san’s pajamas, and while Akako-san scrunches her nose slightly at the puppy print, she puts it on without a single complaint. Saguru is offered the living room couch and, since they apparently don’t have any sleepwear that actually fits him, a baggy old hoodie and some sweatpants—certainly not what Saguru is used to, but he’ll manage, and he appreciates the hospitality nonetheless. Kuroba-kun complains that the couch is supposed to be _his_ , it’s apparently always been his during sleepovers ever since they were kids, but when Aoko-san points out that he could literally just head next door and sleep in his own bed, he shuts up and takes the futon without even bothering to change out of his school uniform.

Saguru tends to be an early riser by habit, so it’s not a surprise when he’s the first of the four to wake up the next morning. Grabbing his pocket watch from the center table, he notes that it’s six thirty-two and fourteen point two seconds, then picks up his clothes that he folded last night and heads to the bathroom to change back. As he passes through the kitchen, though, Saguru startles at the sight of a somewhat disheveled Inspector Nakamori standing behind the counter and downing a mug of, if the smell is any indication, very strong black coffee.

“Ah, Hakuba-kun,” Nakamori calls. “Perfect timing. I’d like to have a talk with you.”

“Inspector,” Saguru blurts without thinking, honestly still half-asleep, “I can assure you that this sleeping arrangement was made purely out of necessity and I would never dream of doing anything improper to your daughter—”

“Oh, I know that,” Nakamori cuts him off, causing Saguru to halt mid-sentence. “You’re a stuck-up brat, but you’re good to Aoko. Nah, I wanted to ask you about that redheaded girl.”

Saguru blinks. “You mean Akako-san?”

“Yeah, her,” Nakamori grunts, then takes another sip of his coffee. “You and Kaito-kun I can trust, but that girl’s more of a mystery to me. I know I really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but from what I’ve seen, she’s the type of girl I’d expect to be _bullying_ Aoko rather than working with her.” He sets his mug down, his expression becoming concerned as he looks Saguru in the eye. “I was just hoping you could tell me what you think of their relationship.”

Saguru bites his lip, needing a little time to formulate his answer. Akako-san as a whole remains a confusing puzzle of a woman, but as to her interactions with Aoko-san, he _has_ noticed the ice starting to melt as it were. In the beginning, Akako-san could be rather catty towards the other girl, dropping thinly-veiled slights that Aoko-san definitely noticed but made a point of ignoring—but since then, Aoko-san’s honest friendliness has clearly worn Akako-san down. Prime evidence of that would be the puppy print pajamas from last night.

“Akako-san is rather sharp-tongued in general,” Saguru says, “and at first, some of the things she would say to Aoko-san could be quite rude. But she’s never said or done anything outright malicious or cruel, and Aoko-san never seemed particularly bothered by any of the insults, which have since significantly decreased.” He hazards a small smile. “Your daughter is rather fond of Akako-san, and though it may have taken a while, I do believe the feeling is now mutual.”

Inspector Nakamori listens to this intently, and after a while, he nods. “Okay. Thanks for your input.”

He brings his mug back to his lips to take a long swig, and Saguru takes that as his cue to bow slightly in goodbye and then retreat into the bathroom. As he closes the door behind him, though, he finds himself still thinking about Akako-san, and about how she interacts with all the rest of them. With Aoko-san, she seems to have a developed a sort of fondness, one that she may try to hide but that nonetheless shines through. With Kuroba-kun, she seems frustrated with how he constantly rebuffs her flirtations, but there’s no true animosity between them, and perhaps even a strange sort of _understanding_. With Saguru…

Saguru glances at himself in the bathroom mirror, at his current messy bedhead and loose-fitting clothes, and sighs. How he looks right now is a lot like how he feels whenever Akako-san is around: unrecognizable from the person he normally is. The way she makes his heart pound and his mind fog over is wholly uncalled for, to the point he would classify it as unnatural _infatuation_ more than actual attraction, and even _that_ is still strange, because yes, she’s beautiful, but she’s not even really his type.

(His type actually seems to involve messy dark hair paired with deep blue eyes and topped with a playful spirit, a profile that matches two particular acquaintances he’s made since coming to Japan—but that’s an entirely different subject altogether.)

The point, though, is that as much as Akako-san piques his curiosity, Saguru can barely even talk with her without feeling like he’s losing control of himself, like he’s turning into someone he’s not.

That’s not a feeling he enjoys.

* * *

After Baaya picks Saguru up from the Nakamoris’, she spends the whole drive home chattering on about how happy she is that her young master has finally made some friends in Japan. She’s so excited that Saguru doesn’t bother to correct her, but speaking honestly, he’s always been so work-oriented that he just doesn’t make friends, period. Not here, and not back in England, either.

The other three members of the Kaitou Kid Capture Brigade aren’t his _friends_. Aoko-san is the closest, but he’d still call her a friendly acquaintance at best. Kuroba-kun is just a frustrating paradox of a person, a teammate and a troublemaker and an adversary all rolled into one. Akako-san is captivating but somehow dangerous to Saguru’s sense of self, and in the end, he really doesn’t know her all that well.

(And if thinking about each of these fellow teenagers alights a different type of slightly hormonal flame within him, well, that’s just a natural result of puberty that he’ll have to deal with on his own.)

Saguru’s participation in the brigade is professional rather than personal, but over time, he does fall into certain routines with the other members. They stop bothering with the old club room and just head straight to the Nakamoris’ after school, where either they all have takeout delivery for dinner or, on occasion, Aoko-san goes ahead and cooks for all of them. Saguru brings over a set of pajamas his own size that stay folded on a top shelf in a hallway closet whenever he’s not there, and Aoko-san buys toothbrushes and plastic mugs just for him and Akako-san—white for his, red for hers. During the mornings after spending the night, before they all either walk to Ekoda High together if it’s a school day or simply go their separate ways if it’s not, the four of them always take about fifteen minutes to drink their own beverages together.

(Aoko-san takes her coffee as black as her father’s, Kuroba-kun takes his with six spoonfuls of sugar, Saguru isn’t one for coffee so he simply brings his own teabags, and Akako-san mixes up what are apparently her own homegrown herbs to make some type of tisane that Saguru doesn’t recognize but that smells divine.)

Usually, the inspector isn’t around to supervise them, but he is around sometimes, just often enough that Akako-san’s use of “Nakamori-san” to address her classmate eventually becomes confusing. Soon afterwards, repeated insistence from said classmate prompts Akako-san to start saying “Aoko-san” instead, and not long after that, Saguru finds his own appellation for her slipping into Aoko- _kun_ , which she points out but doesn’t seem to dislike. Around that point is when Saguru realizes that he’s been feeling far more comfortable, far more _casual_ , than he would if all these meetings were purely for business.

Then Aoko-kun asks them to meet for reasons that have nothing to do with Kaitou Kid and everything to do with helping each other review for the upcoming end-of-term exams, and that’s when Saguru has to admit to himself that fine, okay, maybe spending time with the other three isn’t _only_ about the Capture Brigade anymore.

To be honest, Saguru’s not sure how much any of them really need a study group. His own grades are great, Aoko-kun and Kuroba-kun regularly demonstrate their academic brilliance whenever they goof off during class, and Akako-san’s name is also typically listed near the top whenever test scores are posted. But Aoko-kun seems genuinely worried about exams, and when she widens her eyes and pouts her lips and clasps her hands together while making her plea, it’s simply impossible to say no.

Which leads them all to where they are now: in the Nakamoris’ living room, textbooks and worksheets spread out over the center table, Akako-san rolling her eyes and Saguru rubbing his temples as Aoko-kun and Kuroba-kun bounce around the room screaming at each other. Honestly, Saguru lost track of what they were arguing about a good while back—they’ve both been spouting a lot of complex mathematical terms in rapid-fire Japanese, and though he _thinks_ Aoko-kun is currently yelling something about the shoddiness of using a z-test over a t-test, that doesn’t make any sense, because just six minutes and eleven seconds ago they were all calculating integrals so how the _hell_ did they manage to get onto inferential statistics?

“No, you _know_ it’s not shoddy, Ahouko!” Kuroba-kun fires back. “You’re trying to play it safe, but really, you’re just being a clumsy cowardly _ditz_!”

Kuroba-kun clearly spit it out as a thoughtless retort, and really, the insult is no harsher than his usual fare whenever he teases Aoko-kun. From the way his body shifts into a defensive stance, he’s expecting her to be cross enough at the comment to either pounce at him or throw something his direction. But for whatever reason, perhaps simply the stress of having been studying here for hours on end, Aoko-kun doesn’t react with anger. Instead, she suddenly lets out a wail and goes limp, knees hitting the floor as she visibly fights back tears.

In the blink of an eye, Akako-san is up from her seat and pulling Aoko-kun into her arms, letting the other girl sob incomprehensibly into her shoulder as she sends a spectacularly harsh death glare towards Kuroba-kun. Kuroba-kun himself looks like he’s just had the rug pulled out from under him as regret paints every inch of his face, because as much as he makes fun of Aoko-kun on a daily basis, they all know he’d never meant to actually make her so upset that she’d _cry_. That’s the problem with how close the two childhood friends are; if it had been anyone else who said it to her, Aoko-kun probably wouldn’t be taking it this hard, but Kuroba-kun simply has too much power over her emotional state.

(God, Kuroba-kun is the Kaitou Kid—just how much is _that_ going to hurt her?)

Saguru’s skull is seriously starting to throb now, so he hisses out through grit teeth that he’s going to go splash some water on his face. There’s no response from either Kuroba-kun or the girls, but he doesn’t need one, immediately leaving the living area to head for the bathroom. On the way there, he passes through the kitchen, and his eyes happen to land on the glass jar on the counter, the one that the Nakamoris keep full of sugar just so that Kuroba-kun will have it easily on hand for his morning coffee.

Suddenly, Saguru is struck with an idea.

It’s childish and impulsive and honestly _beneath him_ , but the next thing Saguru knows, he’s reaching into the cabinet where he knows Aoko-kun keeps the sugar sack and then dumping the contents of the glass jar back into the bag it came from. Perhaps he should be scandalized at himself, at how a certain prankster magician must be rubbing off on him, but right now, he’s too pissed off at Kuroba-kun to care.

He finds the can of iodized salt and pours that into the jar instead.

Saguru promptly puts all the containers back where he found them and doesn’t let himself stop long enough to regret his actions. He goes to the bathroom and washes his face like he said he would, and as his headache slowly abates, he returns to the living room to find Kuroba-kun wholeheartedly apologizing, cupping Aoko-kun’s cheek in his hand and wiping at her tears with his thumb. Afterwards, everyone agrees to take a break from the heatedly controversial subject of calculus and switch to English, a subject which mostly has Saguru, the resident expert, correcting everyone else’s mistakes (and also biting his tongue when it comes to some instances of spelling, because their textbook was clearly written with _American_ English in mind).

Amidst all the near-ceaseless studying that extends late into the night, Saguru almost forgets about what he did to the jar until the next morning, when he’s very abruptly reminded as they’re all brewing their drinks. He’s actually half-expecting Kuroba-kun to see through the switch, but no, the sugar addict actually pours six whole scoops of salt into his coffee without suspecting a thing. Saguru watches this carefully whilst filling with…not exactly guilt, but still a definite sort of unease, because he’s really not sure how Kuroba-kun is going to react.

As it turns out, Kuroba-kun reacts by choking on his first gulp, spit-taking all over the counter, and actually physically _crying_ from how bad it apparently tastes.

Maybe Saguru should feel bad, but all he can feel is very vengefully _satisfied_.

“Kaito…?” Aoko-kun blinks confusedly. “What’s wrong?”

Before Kuroba-kun can answer, Akako-san suddenly bursts into laughter, an enchanting sound that catches Saguru thoroughly off-guard as it rings in his ears and prompts a spike in his heartbeat. Lately, he’s gotten pretty good at tempering his reactions to Akako-san, but he has to be prepared beforehand; _that_ just came out of seemingly nowhere, and now it’s left him feeling oddly _floaty_.

He’s brought back down to earth, though, by Kuroba-kun’s abrupt and very unexpected shriek of “Akako, _w_ _hat did you put in_ _my drink_?!”

Kuroba-kun actually sounds _panicked_ , and he starts coughing and frantically patting down his own body like he’s expecting to sprout extra limbs or something. He’s acting seriously scared, almost as if he’s been poisoned, and the weirdest part is that the appalled look he shoots Akako-san also seems _betrayed_. Like he had believed Akako-san wouldn’t do…well, whatever it is he thinks she’s done.

“Oh relax, Kuroba-kun.” Akako-san flashes a smirk and flippantly waves her hand. “Your sugar has simply been replaced with salt. Nothing more.”

Saguru blinks. How does she even know that? Did she see Saguru do it last night, or did she perhaps deduce it somehow?

Kuroba-kun continues staring at her for a while, but after some time passes and he doesn’t drop dead or otherwise experience whatever adverse effect he’d been anticipating, the tension drains from his face. “That’s really all?” he murmurs cautiously.

Akako-san sighs, but drops her smug smile for an earnestly assuring expression. “That’s really all, Kuroba-kun. I promise.”

Kuroba-kun needs a moment, but he apparently believes her after that, his muscles visibly relaxing as he slumps back against the kitchen cabinets. “You’re a bastard,” he mumbles, but he seems too entirely relieved to honestly be miffed.

Aoko-kun giggles, reaching over to playfully flick him in the nose. “Oh, so Kaito can dish it out, but he can’t take it when the joke is on him?”

“Hey, replacing sugar with salt isn’t even that good of a joke,” Kuroba-kun grumbles. “That’s like, one of the most basic pranks in existence.”

“And you still fell for it,” she snickers. “Bakaito.”

“Shut it, Ahouko.”

She doesn’t, continuing to badger Kuroba-kun about his overblown reaction without relent or remorse, but Kuroba-kun takes the teasing in good stride. If anything, Aoko-kun laughing at him actually seems to cheer him up somehow—likely because she’s having fun with him, even if at his expense. After all, Aoko-kun never explicitly forgave him last night, but her light tone right now seems to indicate that they’re back to being on good terms.

As those two dissolve into banter, too focused on each other to notice anything else, Saguru glances towards Akako-san. She seems content to have everyone believe she’s the one who played the prank, and Saguru isn’t about to volunteer the truth himself, but there’s something perplexing about the way Kuroba-kun seemed genuinely afraid of Akako-san for a minute there. Saguru mentally files that into the increasingly tall imaginary stack of strange observations about Akako-san, but though he narrows his eyes at her in suspicion, Akako-san simply meets his gaze and winks, indicating that somehow, she _knows_ the one who switched out the sugar was him.

Saguru is better prepared this time, so where the gesture might have previously sent his head spinning, he’s now able to tamp down some of his body’s automatic responses. He fights against the increased pace of his heart, against the heat that swells in his stomach, because those sensations are familiar enough that he’s learned to overcome them. But behind those, his chest bubbles up with even further feelings: respect that she figured it out, gratitude that she took the blame, amusement (tempered with vast confusion) that she was able to play Kuroba-kun so thoroughly.

Akako-san isn’t just making him feel intense temptation. Now she’s making him feel something like genuine _fondness_.

Somehow, that just makes her seem even more unnerving than ever.

* * *

“Kid spotted on the fifth floor!” Saguru yells into his comm as the white-clad figure rushes by, then instantly starts chasing after it. “North sector, designated third hallway, headed towards the— _ack_!”

As Saguru turns the corner, he steps onto a tile that _gives_ beneath his feet, and the next thing he knows, a tightly-strung net is flying at him, heaving his whole body to the side and straight through an open door. Saguru doesn’t even get a decent look at the room he’s been forced into before everything goes dark, the only light he can see shining in from the hallway through the slim gaps around the now closed door.

“Au revior, Tantei-san!” Kid’s voice cheekily taunts in conjunction with an audible click, and though Saguru frantically rushes for the door handle, he’s already too late. The lock is set and refuses to budge, so he quickly abandons the hopeless effort to instead frustratedly pound a fist against the wood. Damn it, Kuroba-kun must have set up that trap earlier during his assigned patrol, and Saguru just ran straight into it.

“That _bastard_!” he hisses aloud.

“Hakuba-kun?” Aoko-kun calls through his comm. “Hakuba-kun, what happened?”

He’s about to answer that Kid locked him in what he’s pretty sure is the janitor’s closet when out of nowhere, a hand grasps at his shoulder, startling him so badly that the intended words instead come out as a strangled yelp. Saguru whirls around in shock, not the easiest feat to pull off in this small enclosed space, and comes face-to-face with Akako-san of all people, who’s holding a lit flashlight beneath her face in an almost stereotypically horror-inducing fashion.

“Oh dear,” Akako-san says, her tone entirely too flat to be convincing. “It seems we have both fallen into the same trap, how unfortunate.” But she’s smiling as she approaches, not seeming the slightest bit annoyed or ruffled. In fact, Saguru could swear it’s almost as if she knew this was going to happen.

As if it’s exactly what she _wanted_ to happen.

Before Saguru can even think of saying anything, Akako-san is practically in his face, and she promptly reaches to his ear and switches off his mic—her own must have already been off for a while, since he didn’t hear her last statement over the earpiece. Then she continues leaning in, so close that she’s actually pinning him against the door, and Saguru swallows hard as his mind hazes over. Trapped in such near proximity, all his senses are soon flooded with nothing but _her_ : the enchanting thrum of her voice, the sweet aroma of her perfume, the suggestive positioning of her body as it presses up against his own…

“I can pick the lock!” Saguru blurts out, desperate for any excuse to get her off of him, because he can actually _feel_ his self-control slipping away. And it _is_ true—he always keeps a set of lockpicks in his shoes these days, and although he doesn’t have the nimble and precise hands of a master magician like Kuroba-kun, Saguru is still capable of getting the job done.

But Akako-san just scoffs. “Oh please. We all know how this goes: Kaitou Kid gets away with the jewel and then delivers it to Inspector Nakamori’s mailbox before the month is up. This time won’t wind up any different whether or not you get out of this closet.”

Deep down, Saguru knows that she’s right, that he’d lost any chances of catching Kid the moment he got locked in here. But even so, he simply doesn’t want to give up until the heist is actually over—and no matter how bewitching Akako-san is, no matter how much his every instinct is currently screaming at him to just give in and let her do whatever she wants to him, ultimately, Saguru is a man of reason. And the small part of him that’s still clinging to that reason absolutely _refuses_ to surrender his personal autonomy like that.

“It’s adorable how you try to resist it,” Akako-san whispers into his ear. But then she takes several steps back until she’s as far away as she can get, reclining against some shelves that hold cleaning supplies. Saguru hadn’t even realized he’d stopped breathing but suddenly he can breathe again, and his head clears until he’s back to an at least functional level of thought. “But fine. The truth is, I’ve been meaning to talk to you alone, and it’s best that you be lucid when I do so.”

That makes it explicitly clear that Akako-san is both aware of the affect her presence has on him and holds some sort of control over it. Saguru already believed as much, but this makes it a certainty, even if he still doesn’t understand exactly _how_ she manages to ensnare almost every man she meets. Before, his best theory was hypnosis of some sort, but now he mentally revises it to possibly being a psychotropic substance, because whatever she just did was more intense than ever before and felt as intoxicating as a drug, sickly and seedy and just plain _wrong_.

Saguru thinks he might like Akako-san a lot better if only she didn’t _do that_.

But she’s apparently decided to have mercy on him for now, and in his immense relief, Saguru figures he might as well hear her out. “Very well. You have my attention, Akako-san.”

“Good.” And she shines the beam of her pocket flashlight right in his face, almost as if she were an officer interrogating a suspect. “I want to know your intentions towards the Kaitou Kid.”

If she meant for that to sound dirty, it worked, because suddenly Saguru is trying very hard not to think about Kid in ways that he doesn’t want to admit he thinks about in general. But pushing those thoughts aside, Saguru clears his throat, and answers as professionally as he can manage, “My intentions are to catch him, of course. I believe I have made that incredibly clear.”

“But _why_ do you want to catch him?” Akako-san presses, and Saguru doesn’t miss the irony in how she’s taken his own trademark question and twisted it back onto him. “Is it for recognition? For justice? Do you wish to lock him away in prison, or to unmask his identity for all the world to see? Or, perhaps, do you want to catch him…simply for the satisfaction of catching him?”

Saguru is actually taken aback. Nobody’s ever asked him that before, and it doesn’t seem to be a leading question, either. As far as he can tell, Akako-san is asking because she’s genuinely unsure of the answer.

“…Are you _certain_ ,” she continues, “that you really want to catch him at all?”

Saguru honestly has no idea what she might be trying to get at, and he furrows his brow in confusion. “Akako-san, why are you asking me this?”

Akako-san sighs, obligingly shifting the light to the side so that it’s not blinding Saguru quite so much. “Destiny has become rather clouded as of late. I sense that the Kaitou Kid will soon face a great upheaval to his world, but I cannot tell what form that upheaval will take, nor what affects it may have on the future. What I _can_ tell, though, is that how events will unfold from here is largely dependent on whatever choices _you_ make, Hakuba-kun.”

Saguru bites his lip. Akako-san is speaking almost as if she’s managed to see into the future, but…no matter how sharp she’s proven herself to be when it comes to predicting others’ movements, going as far as to imply outright _psychic vision_ is absolutely ludicrous.

(Much like her overwhelming power over most men ought to be ludicrous, and _yet_.)

“I want you to think on this very carefully, Hakuba-kun.” Akako-san’s voice is low, her face utterly solemn. “What _are_ you going to do, if you ever get the chance to see the Kaitou Kid caught?”

That wording seems pointed, because as soon as she says it, Saguru is suddenly struck with a relentless revelation. Oh, Saguru wants to catch Kid, yes, of course he does, because his desire to truly best the thief in a battle of wits hasn’t wavered in the slightest. Yet, now that Akako-san brings it up, when he imagines how it would be to see Kaitou Kid _caught_ …

The thought makes him feel sick.

…Just when did those become two different things?

But Saguru doesn’t get a chance to contemplate, or to ponder, or to ask anything more from Akako-san, before the door that he’s been propping himself against this whole time abruptly gives way behind him. Saguru stumbles backwards into the hallway and right past whoever just opened the closet—Kuroba-kun, as it turns out, who’s standing by the doorway and holding a four-fingered Kit-Kat that was clearly bitten incorrectly.

“ _There_ you are!” Kuroba-kun exclaims through a mouthful of wafer, acting as if he’s surprised to see Saguru, but it becomes extremely obvious that he’s faking it when Akako-san then walks out the door and cobalt eyes widen in _real_ surprise. (Which confirms: Kid didn’t trap her in there, she locked herself in the closet all on her own, so seriously, what is her _deal_?) But Kuroba-kun’s poker face is quick to slide back into place, and then he scrunches up his nose in an over-exaggerated show of disgust. “O-oh, oh, _eww_! Holy shit, were you two making out in there?!”

Kuroba-kun clearly says it with intent to tease rather than any serious belief that that was what they were doing, so Saguru immediately shoots back, “What if we were?” with as straight a face as he can muster. Kuroba-kun actually _chokes_ on his chocolate bar, which is satisfying to see, but once he recovers, he sends Akako-san an accusing and almost protective glare. Saguru is almost touched by how Kuroba-kun apparently feels the need to guard his virtue.

“Yo, Aoko,” Kuroba-kun says, after pressing a hand to his earpiece to turn on his comm. “I found both of them.”

Aoko-kun says something into the line, presumably an inquiry into Saguru and Akako-san’s conditions, though Saguru doesn’t manage to turn his own comm back on in time to hear it for himself.

“Yeah, don’t worry, they’re fine,” Kuroba-kun answers. “They were in the janitor’s closet together.”

Aoko-kun says nothing at first, the silence stretching on for so long that Saguru briefly wonders if his comm might actually still be off. Then:

“Were they making out in there?”

Unlike Kuroba-kun, Aoko-kun’s voice sounds entirely genuine.

“N-no!” Saguru stammers, because somehow the question is far more mortifying when the one asking it _isn’t_ actually trying to make fun of him. “Kid just trapped us in there!”

Aoko-kun hums, clearly disbelieving. “And I suppose Kid also disabled both of your comms?”

“I-I,” Saguru sputters, “I think we all know that Kid could find a way to do that if he wanted to!”

It’s a non-answer that doesn’t sound at all convincing to his own ears, but Aoko-kun thankfully doesn’t push, dropping the subject with an impartial, “Whatever you say, Hakuba-kun.” Then she tells them all that she’ll meet them by the building’s entrance, to which the other three readily agree, but Saguru’s face is flushed red-hot the entire time. As soon as they all hang up, Kuroba-kun immediately resumes his previous mocking, gesturing between both Saguru and Akako-san and then bending over to pretend to gag.

Saguru, giving in to immature impulse, walks over and whops Kuroba-kun over the head.

Akako-san, for her part, simply covers her mouth with her hand and laughs.

* * *

In the weeks after Akako-san’s little interrogation, Saguru finds himself thinking long and hard about what she asked.

He supposes he hasn’t truly pondered his own motivations in a while, because upon review, he realizes that his own reasons must have somehow changed. Saguru truly did want to see Kaitou Kid caught at the start—arrested, tried, put behind bars, and then he could simply move right on to the next criminal. Before Kid, Saguru didn’t have a specialty when it came to cases, and a single phantom thief really wasn’t supposed to take over his mind, his heart, his very _being_ to the degree it ultimately has.

When he first suspected Kid was Kuroba-kun and just needed the evidence to prove it, Saguru had every intention of finding said evidence and turning his classmate in. Then the double riding the broom showed up—and it’s not as if that actually fooled him, because pulling that off was really a simple matter of just having an accomplice, but in retrospect, after that incident was when Saguru’s efforts outside of actual heists became…less enthused.

In all honesty, he’s had plenty of chances to scrounge up real evidence since then, and especially since joining the Capture Brigade. If he’d really put his mind to it, Saguru could have already acquired separate DNA samples from both the thief and civilian identities, matched them, and brought the truth to light by now. Yet, he hasn’t even _tried_.

So down to the question Saguru has to ask himself: why _didn’t_ he do that?

Because…because as a detective, he certainly cares about justice, but more than that, on a personal level, he cares about _psychology_. Saguru has always been most concerned with _why_ criminals do what they do, and in this case especially, he’s concerned because the more time he spends with Kuroba-kun, the more convinced he becomes that Kid has to have some actual reason for doing what he does. Everyone knows Kaitou Kid always returns what he takes, so he’s obviously not stealing for monetary gain, but even beyond that, Saguru knows Kuroba-kun well enough by now to know: he wouldn’t do something that so hurts Aoko-kun, his best friend in the world, just for _kicks_.

So there’s more to it. There has to be.

The conclusion Saguru eventually arrives at is this: his reason for pursuing the Kaitou Kid isn’t at all to arrest him. He just wants to pin the thief down long enough to earn a chance to actually _understand_ him.

That sends what Saguru thought was his own ironclad sense of lawfulness into something of a tailspin, but he’s able to rationalize to himself that technically, he hasn’t outright broken any rules himself. Even if he’s not trying as hard as he honestly could to put the Kid behind bars, he’s still acting within the letter of the law, if not the spirit. And even if Saguru later “slips up” in a way that allows Kid to evade police capture again, well, he can maintain plausible deniability.

So it took some soul-searching, but despite how unbalancing the revelation was at first, Saguru has come to terms with it. He’s not sure what Akako-san meant to accomplish by spurring him onto this path, honestly, because in practicality, it doesn’t change anything. He still wants to truly outwit the thief on an even playing field, to catch Kid on his own terms, so Saguru resolves to keep chasing after the thief, and to spend the next heist acting no different than he always does.

That resolve lasts up until about 10:30 on the night in question.

Saguru unfortunately doesn’t have that time down to the minute, much less the second, since the urgency of the moment doesn’t leave him the leisure to check his pocket watch. He’s in the midst of patrolling his stationed area in the building’s basement when he suddenly hears a bang go off somewhere down the hallway to his right, and he automatically takes off towards it—but he doesn’t fully realize until a few seconds later, when his brain finishes processing the sound, that it wasn’t the bang of a firework or squib.

No, that was a _gunshot_.

Just then, Saguru catches a glimpse of a figure in dressed in black—not the task force uniform, this fabric is an even darker shade and seems to fan out behind the person like the end of a long trench coat—dashing out of a room and immediately disappearing down a hallway. Suspicious as hell, but Saguru doesn’t end up giving pursuit because when he gets close enough to open the door of the room they just left, there’s a much more pressing situation inside:

Kaitou Kid is lying down on the floor of what looks to be a dusty storage room as Akako-san—whose assigned station was on the highest story, so she’s not actually supposed to be anywhere near here—swiftly yanks up the left leg of his suit pants. The usual bright white is stained with dark red, and as blood gushes out from a gaping hole just beneath the knee, Akako-san hastily applies pressure to the wound with both her hands.

“ _Holy s_ _hit_!” Saguru yells before he can stop himself.

“Hakuba-kun?” Aoko-kun pipes up through the earpiece, sounding worried. “Hakuba-kun, come in, what’s wron—?”

In a split second’s decision, Saguru switches off his own comm, then dives into the room to grab a nearby crate and drag it over towards the scene. As he grabs Kid’s boot-clad foot and begins lifting it up onto the box to elevate his leg, Saguru frantically asks, “Is the bullet in him?”

“No, it went clean through,” Akako-san explains. “I don’t think it hit any major arteries, but he still needs to be sewn up before he can get out of here. Could you get my purse for me?”

She gestures her head towards a corner of the room, where the designer handbag she’s been carrying since the beginning of the heist seems to have been hastily thrown onto its side. Saguru rushes over to it and checks the contents to find what one would expect of a well-packed first-aid kit: everything from hydrogen peroxide and elastic bandages to the exact type of needle and surgical thread used for sutures.

“Did you know this was going to happen?” Saguru hisses, setting the disinfectant bottle on the floor beside her, then sliding the string through the eye of the needle himself.

“Not _this_ specifically, but I did have a bad feeling about tonight.” She readily takes the threaded needle into her hands and glances up at Kid’s face. “You fool. I warned you that one of the crows would likely close in on you.”

Kid, sweat visibly lining his brow beneath his top hat, just hisses out a laugh through grit teeth. “At least it wasn’t the snake.”

Saguru isn’t entirely sure what they’re talking about, but when he thinks about “crow” and then about the black-clothed figure he just saw—the black-clothed _shooter_ he just saw—several pieces of the puzzle suddenly click into place. He already figured that Kaitou Kid had to have some deeper motive for stealing gems, and now that Saguru takes into account the presence of someone gunning after Kid, someone who Kid is apparently already familiar with, the deduction materializes: the reason Kaitou Kid organizes all these flashy heists is to draw out some other, far more dangerous criminals.

It’s certainly not a final conclusion, and there’s still a lot of loose ends and unanswered questions, but Saguru doesn’t have the time to ask about them right now. Especially not when a familiar stampede of footsteps comes thudding closer from outside, and Saguru realizes that the task force is incoming—one of them must have heard the gunshot too. Before he can even really think about what he’s doing, Saguru is rushing out into the hall, where he quickly closes the door behind him and then slumps back against it.

He clutches his hand over his forehead, a gesture easily recognized among the task force as being synonymous with dizziness from Kid’s knockout gas, just in time for the officers’ approach. He points in the direction he saw the shooter running and calls out, affecting a slight slur to his voice, “Kid went that way! He changed into a black trench coat, and I think I heard a gun go off! Be careful!”

It’s as much warning as Saguru can give them, and thankfully, they take his word for it. The huddle of task force members immediately take off down the hall—right past Saguru, and right past where the Kaitou Kid actually is. Well, there goes plausible deniability; Saguru has just irrevocably crossed the line straight into aiding and abetting.

Somehow though, he can’t bring himself to regret it.

Once he’s sure that all the police are gone, Saguru slides the door open and glances back inside the room, where Akako-san is doing either a phenomenal job of closing up the wound or a phenomenal job of faking confidence in her own stitching abilities—from this angle, Saguru can’t see the actual leg well enough to tell for himself. Kid, meanwhile, is biting the back of his own gloved hand in order to muffle what might otherwise be loud screams of pain, but when he notices Saguru staring at him, he briefly unclenches his teeth.

“Tantei-san,” Kid gasps out, his voice rough and breathy and almost _agonized_. “ _W_ _hy_?”

Genuine confusion laces his tone, and oddly enough, that fills Saguru with _anger_.

“Do you really have to ask?!” Saguru shouts back, scarcely able to believe himself even as the words burst out of him. “Because I care about keeping you around, you absolute _twit_!”

Kid, apparently rendered speechless by that, simply goes back to biting on his hand as Akako-san continues doing whatever she has to do. Saguru remains on guard by the door for some time, but thankfully, nobody else comes near—not more police, not more gunmen in black, and not Aoko-kun (whom Saguru is now beginning to feel bad for completely ghosting on the comms earlier).

“There!” Akako-san soon chimes, and Saguru blinks in surprise as she and a slightly limping Kaitou Kid both emerge from the room; she wrapped that up faster than he expected. “You’ll need to be properly treated by your accomplice later, but this should hold up until you get there. Now, is that dummy you’ve got up on the roof remote-controlled?”

Kid nods.

“Then release it now, change your clothes, and head to the lobby. We’ll clean up this mess and meet you up there afterwards.”

There’s no protests, no exclamations from Kid that he has no idea what she’s talking about; the thief just vanishes from sight with a flick of his cape and a puff of pink smoke, leaving Saguru and Akako-san to stare at each other. In particular, Saguru finds himself staring at the blood staining Akako-san’s hands and the front of her clothes—blood that Saguru could easily take a sample of for a DNA test if only he actually gave a shit about that anymore.

But he _doesn’t_ give a shit about that anymore, so all Saguru does is push himself up onto his feet and note aloud, “Akako-san, you already knew Kid’s civilian identity.”

She nods. “As did you.”

Honestly, Saguru is still somewhat in disbelief. He did suspect that she knew before, what with all the suggestive hints Akako-san would drop every now and then, but he’s never had true confirmation until tonight. Even still, Saguru clearly hasn’t grasped the whole of the matter—Akako-san doesn’t just know Kid’s identity, she’s outright _cover_ _ing_ for Kid right now, and perhaps has also covered for him before.

(Now that Saguru thinks about it: the Kid double who rode a broom did let out a high-pitched scream that, in retrospect, sounded rather _familiar_ …)

“How in the world,” Saguru mumbles, “did you get involved with him?”

Akako-san shoots him a glare of warning. “I can’t explain that without revealing some secrets of my own. I’d strongly advise you not to pry.”

It’s an extremely unsatisfying answer, but Saguru knows he won’t get a better one no matter how much he pushes. He swallows hard and tries to change the subject. “So does Aoko-kun—?”

“No,” Akako-san answers before he can even ask, “Aoko-san doesn’t suspect a thing.” But she purses her lip, then revises, “Or rather, she doesn’t _want_ to suspect a thing, so she forces herself not to.”

Saguru sighs. Yeah, he figured as much himself, but he just wanted to make sure.

“We’re betraying her,” he realizes somberly. “Aoko-kun founded this group with only the purest intentions of seriously capturing Kid, but everyone she’s recruited has, in one way or another, wound up in cahoots with the very object of her ire.” Tiredly, he cards his fingers through his hair. “This whole team is actually all one big joke, and she’s the only one not in on it.”

Akako-san quirks a brow. “Do you plan to let her in on it?”

“We’re her teammates,” Saguru bemoans, more talking to himself than anything. “Her…her _friends_.” It feels weird to say that out loud—Saguru has never been the type to make friends in his life—and now that he’s apparently made some, of _course_ their circumstances all have to be so very _complicated_.

“Yet we are also his. Infuriating as it may be to admit.” Akako-san rubs some strands of her hair between her blood-caked fingers. “And it isn’t our secret to tell.”

Saguru bites his lip. He knows that she’s right; telling Aoko-kun would only make an already complicated situation even _more_ complicated, and would also bring with it a very distinct risk to Kuroba-kun’s safety. But as true as that is, it’s equally true that Aoko-kun deserves so much better than to be lied to like this.

“Damn it,” Saguru growls, and punches a fist against the wall. “So what do we do with the Capture Brigade?”

“We do what we’ve always done,” Akako-san says. “Come up with plans. Undermine those very same plans. And hope that someday, somehow, Kuroba-kun will find a way to tell her on his own.”

* * *

Saguru wipes all up the blood on the floor as best he can with the same tools Akako-san used to wash her hands: leftover gauze, the disinfectant, and a bottle of water. It’s not the most thorough job ever, but by the time he’s done, the floor looks normal to the naked eye, and there shouldn’t be any reason for anyone to spray the area with luminol later. He knows this because he switched his comm to the police channel earlier to keep an ear on what’s happening outside—nobody has reported sighting any figures in black, so the shooter and any of their accomplices must have gotten away somehow, and the task force as a whole seems to have written off the gunshot as having actually been a harmless firework meant for a trick, or perhaps even a recording that Kid played as a diversion tactic, just to scare them.

Meanwhile, Akako-san finds the bullet embedded in the wall and digs it out, leaving behind a red-stained indentation that Saguru cleans up as best he can. Akako-san hides the mark from sight by pushing a crate against the wall there—a crude attempt at a smokescreen, but the best they can do in these circumstances—and then she has Saguru leave the room so she can change out of her bloodied clothes (because another set that wasn’t there before is now neatly folded atop a nearby desk, and of _course_ Kid was just keeping a perfect duplicate of Akako-san’s outfit on hand, why is Saguru not even surprised?).

Akako-san joins him out in the hall four minutes and forty-eight seconds later, and although her purse is noticeably bulging more than before—likely because she had to stuff her old set of clothes in there—she has not a hair out of place otherwise. Finished with their crime-scene tampering, she and Saguru head up to the lobby together, where they find Kuroba-kun already waiting: a little harried, and ever so slightly favoring his right leg, but not to the point that it would be noticed by anyone who wasn’t already looking for it.

Aoko-kun comes running up to all of them from the stairway not even a minute later, scowling viciously. “Okay, what the _hell_ happened? I heard Hakuba-kun scream but then the line got cut off and then _nobody_ would answer me for almost a half-hour! What fucking _gives_?!”

“Well, actually, we’ve been trying to get in contact with _you_ ,” Akako-san chimes in before either of the boys can say anything, and Saguru instantly twinges with guilt because he knows exactly where this has to go next.

“Aoko-kun, may I see your earpiece please?” Saguru asks, and she blinks in surprise but hands it over. Saguru then makes a show of inspecting the device, tapping against its microphone and pressing it against his own ear, before shaking his head. “It’s gone dead. I’m going to have to get you a new one,” he lies, managing to keep a straight face on the outside but feeling absolutely horrible about himself on the inside.

“…Oh.” All the anger and tension plaguing Aoko-kun’s form instantly drains out; she completely believes him, and that just hurts Saguru so much more. “Well anyway, it sounds like Kid got away again, huh?”

“The task force is going after his hang glider as we speak,” Kuroba-kun says, casually putting his hands behind his head. “But honestly, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“Neither would I,” Aoko-kun admits, but her optimistic self peps right back up with a smile and a shrug. “Oh well. Next time?”

“Yes, next time,” Saguru says, but the promise is hollower now than ever before.

Kuroba-kun then asks one of the lingering task force members to escort Aoko-kun home in a police car, to which the officer agrees, but Aoko-kun cocks her head in confusion. “What? You’re not coming home with me, Kaito?”

“Nah, Jii-chan called and says he’s picking me up. Apparently, he’s experiencing sudden issues with his computer and needs my help fixing it ASAP.” More confirmation for something Saguru already knew: Jii-san is _definitely_ Kaitou Kid’s accomplice. “I’ll just stay with him tonight.”

“Oh, okay.” Aoko-kun accepts this without question, and now that Saguru’s looking, he can really see it at work here—that when Aoko-kun really wants to believe in someone, she’ll willfully ignore any instances of suspicious behavior that they display. “Good luck with that, then.”

Aoko-kun follows the police officer while the other three head out to the street corner to wait for their own rides, and when the car she’s in drives by, she waves goodbye at them all through the window. Saguru waves back and watches her up until the car turns out of sight at an intersection, after which he allows silence to reign for exactly three seconds before pointedly whirling on Kuroba-kun.

“The ‘crow’ unfortunately seems to have escaped,” Saguru informs him, and Kuroba-kun freezes up.

“Hakuba,” he snarls out after a moment, “for your own safety, I’d advise you _not_ to go looking into those ‘crows’.”

Saguru scoffs. “Oh, I suppose that’s why you’re making yourself a bright white glowing target? For your own _safety_?”

“I’m not Kid,” Kuroba-kun insists, even as everyone standing here knows it’s a lie. “But if I was, I’d tell you that it’s none of your business and you need to _b_ _ack off_.”

“Do you seriously expect me to do that?” Saguru hisses. “I’m not about to back off when Kid is in _danger_.”

“Kid’s an adrenaline junkie, the danger is the whole point.”

“No, that’s clearly _not_ the whole point! Who are those people, and why do you want to draw them out so badly?!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and _I’m not Kid_!”

They’ve been getting more and more up in each other’s faces with each whispered shout, and now Saguru is practically nose-to-nose with Kuroba-kun, glaring daggers into steely blue. In the end, though, Saguru is the first to fall back; obviously, trying to probe Kuroba-kun for answers like this is only going to make him clam up even tighter. So Kuroba-kun petulantly turns up his nose and takes several steps down the sidewalk away from him, while Saguru clutches at his head as it pounds with frustration.

There’s still _so much_ about this entire situation that Saguru doesn’t understand, but he just has to accept right now that he may never fully figure all of that out. He’s too far gone to act like tonight didn’t happen, but he can’t _make_ Kuroba-kun be honest with him—so when it comes down to it, there’s something far more important that Saguru has to do with the knowledge he’s just gained.

He has to keep an eye out during heists. He has to make sure Kid stays safe. He has to keep Kuroba-kun alive and out of jail and together with all of them because yes, he’s a thief, but despite that, he’s also their _friend_.

A hand on his shoulder causes Saguru to turn and meet Akako-san’s gaze, and as he stares into burning scarlet eyes, he knows she’s on the exact same page as him.

They _will_ protect the Kaitou Kid.

(Even if it comes at a cost.)

**Author's Note:**

> btw this is actually part one in a series where part two hasn’t yet been written but some of the later parts were written years ago because what is writing things in order


End file.
